1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitoring device, hereafter a progress monitor for use on a golf course to help keep golfers move at a pace that enables them to meet course designated target times for completion of their rounds. More particularly the present invention relates to a progress monitor that allows any useful number of the different facets of the game of golf, such as teeing off, playing down the fairway, putting out and walking between holes, to be distinguished. For each of these facets of the game and for the game as a whole the progress monitor allows for the input of parameters. For example, one parameter might be the designated time to complete the whole round. Parameters may be input in the form of fixed quantities of time for a particular facet of play or for a particular hole. Alternatively, or in combination, factors such as a percentages, of the total time for a hole or for a round, may be entered governing how time, for a particular facet of play or for a particular hole, is to be apportioned From the parameters for the individual facets of the game and for the game as a whole, the amount of time that will be spent on any or all of these facets of the game, for any or all holes, will be calculated or taken by the progress monitor. Based on the inputs the progress monitor continuously displays or periodically advises the golfer where he or she should be on the course at that moment if the golfer is to complete his or her round in the specified time. It also allows for the golfer to enter the actual position he or she is on the course. Given this input it recalibrates the progress monitor so that the remaining time is uniformly apportioned, according to the initial percentages or times per hole, so the golfer may still achieve the target completion time. If the golfer is behind schedule the progress monitor will indicate the faster rate of play required, if the golfer is ahead of schedule the progress monitor will indicate the slower rate at which play can continue and still meet the target time. Beside providing guidance for the normal game, which is started from the first tee, the progress monitor will also allow for a starting hole other than the first to be entered by the user, to cater for those situations, such as a "shotgun start" where the field for a tournament starts at different holes simultaneously. Regardless of the starting hole, the progress monitor will accurately determine the position where a golfer should be on the course at that moment if the golfer is to complete his or her round in the specified time.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Golf has experienced extraordinary growth in popularity throughout the world both as a sport and recreation. As the number of golfers increases, the demand for time on golf courses grows proportionally. While many groups of golfers can play on the same course simultaneously, a safe distance must be maintained between each group. This is to protect the group in front from being struck by a ball hit by the group behind.
If a group of golfers play too slowly, they force every group following them to play at their pace. This results in congestion and less than optimum utilization of golf courses by the greatest number of golfers. If clubs can improve the speed of play they can accommodate greater numbers of golfers and produce higher revenues. Although no golfers will admit to being slow golfers, all regard it as one of the most frustrating aspects of the game today. If overall speed improved both golf clubs and golfers would benefit. The game would be much more enjoyable for golfers and more profitable for the golf clubs.
Clubs have adopted various measures to improve playing speed. Such as, insisting on the use of carts, eliminating the rough and employing marshals to police the course. These steps have had a minimal effect. Today, many games take over five hours to complete. It should take golfers of even modest ability no more than fours hours to complete a round.
Many clubs have tried posting signs throughout the course indicating how long it should take a golfer to reach that point. These signs are not effective. For a start, they require golfers to do mental arithmetic, subtracting start time from current time to calculate whether they are ahead of, or behind, the standard.
All golfers believe they are playing quickly, that it is the group ahead causing the delays. If they are not on time at a particular sign they blame it on that group. Of course, they may be right, there is no way at present to easily determine where the problem starts. Because golfers do not easily relate their play to the signs, they quickly cease to have any impact.
The root cause of slow play is that most golfers do not have any idea of the proper speed to play golf. Signs are too static. The individual golfer does not make the connection between his play and the signs. Until individuals make that connection, they will not be encouraged to make the simple changes in their playing habits that will improve the situation for all golfers.
What is needed is an effective, non subjective, way to enable every individual golfer to monitor their progress around the course relative to standards the club has established. This device would give golfers immediate feedback if they were falling behind. The device would in some way politely, but emphatically, convey the message, "speed up", directly to the individual golfer.
Nixon, the inventor of the present progress monitor, has already been issued a patent in the field. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,523,985), which is incorporated herein by reference. The Nixon patent relates to an invention that provides continuous monitoring in the form of a portable progress monitor that can be used by individual golfers. The Nixon invention allows for the input of a target time for completion of the round, but operates on the basis of an even distribution of time per hole (approximately 5.56% per hole). The advantage of this approach is that it simplifies use by not requiring settings for individual holes. The position in U.S. Pat. No. 5,523,985 is that there are so many variables affecting rate of play that per hole settings are unnecessary and that, in the range of target times that would be usual, it will be accurate enough to be useful.
The United States Golf Association (USGA) has recently introduced a set of rating for golf courses that, for a specific target time, apportion the time per hole according to various criteria (such as par, length, degree of difficulty, etc.). If the view that the apportionment of time can be improved by taking such criteria into account is valid, then the Nixon invention is incapable of providing this functionality.
In the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,990, Smith, provision is made for allocating varying amounts of time per hole. However, the Smith progress monitor operates on the basis of a countdown timer moving hands at a steady pace and having 18 leaves that can be spaced out so the amount of time taken per hole varies according to the spacing. The most severe drawback of the Smith invention is that it would be extremely difficult to set accurately. In many cases the differences between times that should be spent on one hole as opposed to another will be small. The Smith progress monitor depends for its performance on being able to visually distinguish that a spacing for one hole should represent 5% of the target time and another should represent 5.5%. Further, it is intrinsic to the design that any inaccuracy in the setting of the spacing for one hole will always result in the provision of time for at least one other hole also being inaccurate. That is because any time added erroneously to one hole means that somewhere on the course less time than intended is available for another hole. The Smith invention is specifically dependent upon a countdown timer moving at a constant pace.
Rather than using a countdown timer and a hand rotating at constant speed as is proposed in both the Nixon and Smith patents, numerous advantages in improved accuracy can be obtained by using a progress monitor that internally knows the specific amount of time to allocate per hole and displays that information by, for example, rotating one degree in a amount of time that varied according to the hole being played.
By allowing the suggested time per hole to be explicitly entered, either directly or in the form of percentages, the inaccuracy inherent in the manual setting of the Smith progress monitor is eliminated.
The view that for each hole there are factors that determine the speed at which it is practical to expect golfers to play the whole course is fundamental to the invention. In no prior art device are the factors that affect the amount of time that should be allowed for a particular hole explicitly used in an algorithm to calculate the apportionment of time. Such an approach is feasible, and is covered by the progress monitor of the present invention. However, this is not the preferred method of implementation for the invention. The preferred implementation expects such factors would be considered externally and only the resulting apportionment entered as actual times per hole, or as percentages of a target time.
None of the prior art devices takes into account the fact that there are places on the golf course where time spent is relatively independent of factors such as the par for the hole, its length or the degree of difficulty of the hole. For example, there is no obvious reason why the time it would take a group of golfers to hit their tee shots on one hole should be different to the time it would take them to hit their tee shots on another. Likewise, on its face, it would seem that the amount of time a group would spend on the putting green would be independent of the par for the hole. In theory, accuracy could be further improved by allowing for the progress monitor to allocate a fixed amount of time per hole for teeing off and putting out and a variable amount only for the activity in between.
It is important to understand what the term accuracy means in the context of a progress monitor. A progress monitor can be considered accurate if the position it indicates a golfer should be on the course, at a given point in time, is a point a typical golfer playing at a comfortable and steady pace would naturally have reached.
Accuracy, in the above sense, is vitally important to the success of any progress monitor. If the progress monitor forces unnatural behavior, rather than improvement in golfing habits, it is unlikely to be successful.
Combining the approach of entering the parameters for the round (target time and percentage of time or actual time to be allocated for each hole) with (for example) a microprocessor based progress monitor greatly simplifies the process of setting the progress monitor and obviates the need for a countdown timer. In a watch like progress monitor such as that envisaged by Nixon, in one embodiment of the progress monitor, the microprocessor could simply control the number of degrees, or fractions of a degree, the rotating main hand would move around the face in a given time. A variety of alternative displays are also made possible. For example, rather than hands, an LCD type display could be used that simulated a moving hand by "graying" out the portion of the face that a hand would have covered. Another alternative would be a progress monitor that displayed a message, such as "You should now be on the fifth tee", or "You should now be moving up the fifth fairway", or "You should be on the fifth green". Other approaches would show the position graphically. Conceptually, the progress monitor could have a speaker and rather than displaying these announcements, they could be made verbally through a speaker on the progress monitor (on request by a golfer wanting to know his or her positional situation).
Further, as an alternative to a mechanism by which the percentages per hole and target times could be entered into the progress monitor manually, a microprocessor based progress monitor would make it feasible to download the parameters from a computer through an appropriately designed interface. The significant advantage of such a progress monitor would be that it would make it then feasible to provide, through CD ROM or by internet connection, a centralized repository of golf course ratings. Golfers using different courses could then plug in their progress monitors and load in the appropriate parameters for the course on which they are going to play.
In all progress monitors mentioned in the prior art, the assumption is made that golfers given the ability to monitor their progress will stay on schedule. However, circumstances may preclude this. Few golfers are likely to take kindly to the approach that they not play a hole to get back to the point they should be on the course. However, they may be amenable to speeding up play by a small amount per hole, over all the remaining holes, to still meet the target time. No previously described progress monitor in the field provides any such recalibration facility.
Progress monitors in the prior art all show the first hole as the starting point. No progress monitor in the prior art provides a mechanism for simply and explicitly nominating some other hole as the starting point and adjusting the progress monitor so that it will accurately display the appropriate position for a golfer at any point in time for the 18 holes they will play in order from that starting point.